


Bedfellows

by justalittlegreen



Series: Sunshine and Filth [18]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Confidence, Francis and Sidney are Good Men, Friendship, M/M, confidant, hunnihawk, period appropriate homophobia references, secrecy, very slight hunnihawk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 06:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/pseuds/justalittlegreen
Summary: Sidney and Francis are the kind of friends that can share confidences.





	Bedfellows

Sidney kicks a stone in the road, hands in his pockets, head down. It's a beautiful day, a rare and crisp glimpse of early summer, and for once, he's reached the 4077 before nightfall. He hardly knew what to do with himself with hours before the poker game. Somehow, he was totally unsurprised to find himself tracing the path to the chaplain's tent.

"It's a beautiful day," he finally says aloud, the first words he's spoken since he proposed a stroll of the camp's perimeter.

"Makes you wonder if He's been hiding all this time, or if He's just showing off a little today," Francis says with a lightness in his voice that Sidney savors. He kicks another stone.

"Something on your mind, Dr. Freedman?"

"Please - it's Sidney. Only my patients call me Dr. Freedman. And oh, I suppose. There's always something, isn't there?"

Francis stops and shields his eyes, looking up into the hills and sighing. "There is, Sidney. And at the moment, I think something's coming. We'd better hurry."

Sidney falls into step behind Francis as he jogs back toward the camp, wondering if he'll have cause to curse the universe any more tonight.

*

Five hours later, Sidney sheds the blood-streaked lab coat he threw over his fatigues and sneaks out of Post-Op. He watches BJ and Hawkeye stagger off toward the showers, leaning on each other like a couple of old, entwined trees. Sidney checks his fatigues for anywhere the blood's crept through - just his boots this time - and starts to make for the VIP tent.

"Sidney?" Francis is just behind him. "I was going to get some coffee from the mess tent. Do you want anything?"

"Something edible?" Sidney says with a raised eyebrow. Francis smiles, gives one of his aw-shucks shrugs. "How about company?" Sidney asks, more seriously.

Francis nods. "I'd be delighted."

'Coffee,' it turns out, is an excuse to sit and warm what you can of your hands and chin over a small steaming cup. Neither of them actually drinks it. 

"It was a good night," Francis says, wrapping his hands around the tin mug. 

"Meaning you weren't needed in your official capacity," Sidney guesses.

"Yup. Just a litter-lugger. Which frankly, is preferable to the alternative. What were you doing tonight? I didn't see you much."

Sidney looks down, a little embarrassed. "I was mostly in pre-op," he says, not mentioning that Hawkeye kicked him out of OR once he started looking queasy. "Holding hands, checking bandages, practicing some measure of what I do."

Francis's eyes are kind. "I'm sure it was a great comfort to the boys you helped," he offers. Sidney winces in the shape of a smile.

"Sidney...do you remember the time I told you about a friend of mine, about whom I was worried?"

"You mean me?" he replies, smiling for real this time.

Francis clears his throat and conspicuously looks away as if to say _yes definitely you_ before continuing. "I've often thought about that conversation since that day."

"So have I," Sidney admits. Francis looks surprised. 

"You too?" 

"It's not often you realize you're looking at the other side of the coin you live on," Sidney explains. "It was the moment I figured out why I've always respected your work. More than other men of the cloth, if you don't mind my saying. If I hadn't been born when, where and to whom I was, I might've ended up in your shoes."

Francis beams. "Well, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you'd have made an excellent priest." 

"And I think you might've made an excellent psychiatrist," Sidney adds. "No offense meant, of course."

"None taken." Francis smiles.

The mess empties out; it's got to be past two by now, but Sidney feels more awake than he has in weeks. "Francis," he says, "is it warmer here or in your tent? I'm happy to play solitaire, but I've been suddenly struck by the need for a game of cards."

Francis gets up from his seat. "I have a deck in my tent. Are we betting?"

Sidney shakes his head. "You've already got my weekly orphanage contribution, you shark."

They make their way out of the mess, but Mulcahy takes a loop in the wrong direction. 

"Father?" Sidney calls. "I thought you lived down the other lane."

Francis pauses and gestures for him to follow. Within a minute they're at the Swamp's painted door. Francis puts a finger to his lips and opens the door with practiced moves, so gently it hardly even creaks.

"What're we doing?" Sidney whispers at his ear. Francis sticks his head in the door and points. The sight takes Sidney's breath away. BJ and Hawkeye are curled up on one cot, somehow implausibly, under a pile of both their linens. Sid feels something squeeze in his chest as he takes it in. There's hardly any light, but he can see how at peace they are. 

He looks back at Francis, who's frowning worriedly. "I hate to do this," he mutters. "You'd better stay back so they don't see you."

Sid obeys, slipping as far away as he can while still with his eye on a crack in the door. He watches Francis go to the cot and gently shake a shoulder. He can't hear what he's whispering, bent over the sleepy pile, but within a minute, he watches Hawkeye emerge from the tangle of arms and legs, letting Francis guide him back to his own bed. He flops onto the cot and Francis covers him with the brusque efficiency of a nurse, tucking the blankets anywhere that might keep the heat in.

Sidney doesn't know why there are sudden tears in his eyes, but he doesn't question them, either.

After Francis slips back out of the Swamp, they make way toward his tent. As they get inside, Francis busies himself building up the fire in the stove while Sidney sits on an upturned bucket with his head in his hands.

"I hope you understand, Sidney," Francis begins, "that I have the utmost confidence in you. That I expect similar confidence." His voice, high and warbly as ever, has none of its usual uncertainty. There's stone beneath the words, and Sidney hears it.

"You've nothing to fear," he says quietly. "I didn't see anything - "

" - if that's the way you need to think of it," Francis cuts him off. 

"Hold on. I didn't see anything /I didn't already know,/" Sidney finishes. Francis sits back on his heels and looks up at him, brow furrowed.

"Hawkeye said I was the only one - well, except Radar. There's no keeping anything from him," Francis says.

Sidney shrugs. "He didn't have to. Call it professional intuition." He waves his hands as if to say _who cares._ "I don't have to know everything to know everything, if you know what I mean."

Francis's face relaxes. "I believe I do," he says. 

There's a long silence while Sidney shuffles and deals. They play a few hands, neither of them really thinking about the game, but grateful for the meditation of the cards in their hands.

"Father?" Sidney says after awhile. Francis looks up. 

"Yes, my son?" he replies, the words landing deliberately.

"How do you reconcile everything you know with everything you've been taught?"

Francis frowns, turning his focus back to the cards. "Doctor," he replies, "there are many things I know and many things I've been taught. One of them is the immorality of war."

"And yet you enlisted," Sidney says.

Francis nods. "I have never...believed...that one must be perfect to be good. Or that one must...practice in the most sterile of environments to _do_ good."

"And what made you so sure you could trust me?" Sidney presses. "For all you know, I could find it wholly objectionable. You know my books read much the way yours do on the subject."

Francis purses his lips, shuffles his cards. "I like to think I know you better than that," he says quietly. "Weren't you just complimenting my judgment a few hours ago?"

"I'm serious," Sidney replies. "How do I know you don't go around leading peep show tours of the swamp with just anyone who walks into camp?" There's enough lightness in his voice that he thinks Francis will hear both the joke and the edge in it.

"Sidney," Francis says softly. "I promise that no one has seen what you've seen. I think you know that."

"How did you know you could trust me?" Sidney repeats.

"I don't know," Francis admits. "I just did. You so obviously care for -" he cuts himself off, spreading his cards on the table. "Gin."

Sidney wordlessly scoops up the cards and starts shuffling again. "I so obviously what?"

Francis looks him dead in the eye. "Would I be wrong to suggest that your friendship with Hawkeye is stronger than your relationship as his psychiatrist?"

" _No,_ " Sidney says so loudly it startles them both. "Father Mulcahy, he is my - " Francis holds up a hand to stop him.

"I apologize, Doctor Freedman," he says. "Of course I didn't mean to suggest you were in any way unprofessional. But I would be lying if I suggested that my feelings about all these men and boys were somehow constrained by my cassock," he explains. "They're...more to me than a flock."

Sid taps his fingers against hips closed lips and deals the cards again.

"How long have you known about them?" Sidney finally asks, three hands later. 

"Long enough," Francis says.

"And they've never been caught?"

"There've been a few...close calls," Francis admits. "Though luckily, it's not altogether unusual for friends to share warmth in the colder months."

"I imagine not," Sidney says, thinking of how nice it would be to share a blanket with another person. He moves too often to develop the kinds of friendships that keep the 4077 together. "I imagine it's not always about body temperature for everyone else, either."

"There's a certain blind eye attitude to...fraternization when it drops below zero," Francis says. "Of course - " he stops himself.

"Mmm?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

Sid shrugs, deals the next hand. They play another few minutes while the wind picks up.

"I suppose I was thinking about how the privacy of my quarters is certainly welcome, though there are nights when I've been tempted to bunk in the Swamp for the very possibility that body heat transfers across tents," he says.

Sid smiles. "You know, having slept in plenty of tents alone, and also the Swamp, I won't say you're wrong," he says. "There is something about camaraderie that takes a bit of bite out of the chill."

It takes another hour of negotiating, but by the time the night watch changes at two, Francis and Sidney, bundled in hats, coats, scrubs, and multiple layers of socks are bedded down between Francis's bed and the portable cot Sid drags over from the VIP tent.

Sidney drifts off to the sound of Francis's whistling snore. They may not be touching, but there's something warmer in him already.


End file.
